The issue is finally clinched. Not only has the Bombay high court held Mr. AR Antulay guilty of allotting cement quotas to some builders in Bombay in return for “contributions” to two trusts floated and controlled by him, the Maharashtra chief minister has had the good sense to ask Mrs. Gandhi to accept his resignation. This has been pending with her for some months. As the constitutional head of government, she has no choice in the matter. She is obliged to respect the verdict of the court. As it happens, she is publicly committed to do so. In the face of the honourable course of action Mr. Antulay has adopted, it might appear churlish to recall that his actions have threatened to discredit the Congress (I), its supreme leader, Mrs. Gandhi, and, indeed, the entire system. But it is necessary to emphasize the point that while we have had chief ministers who have abused their office to amass fortunes for themselves or for their parties or for organisations controlled by them directly or indirectly, in the history of independent India no other chief minister has done so as brazenly and unashamedly as Mr. Antulay. Others have evaded the law in a surreptitious manner. He has been proclaiming that he is the law. He has been unrepentant because he is in the tradition of buccaneers who recognise no law, norm, rule or convention which stands in their path.
In this specific case the Bombay high court has been seized of only one issue – the allocation of cement by Mr. Antulay to builders against payments by them to his trust in violation of the well publicized policy of his government. But while abuse of authority on this count by him has been highly deplorable, this has probably been one of the smaller evils Mr. Antulay has spawned in his brief reign as Maharashtra’s ruler. He has played havoc with the administration, including the police. He has treated secretaries as if they were his personal servants. He has made them dance to his tune, made them wait for hours and transferred them at will. He has virtually abolished the distinction between the legislators and the administration by conferring enormous powers of patronage in respect of allotment of cement and liquor licenses on the former. He has sought to discredit the judiciary by publicizing in TV and in newspapers the allotment of land to a co-operative society of high court judges. He has sought to blackmail newspapers and newspapermen by ranting against them. Such things have, of course, happened elsewhere. But Maharashtra is not just another Indian state. It’s capital, Bombay, is the industrial-commercial heart of India. To disrupt the administration there is to risk throwing the country’s economy into confusion. The risk has perilously been close to materializing.
In the face of the specific nature of the charges against Mr. Antulay and of incontrovertible evidence to support them, it has been difficult, with the best will in the world, to appreciate Mrs. Gandhi’s reluctance so far to accept his resignation. Several explanations have been offered. It has been said that she has been afraid that his removal would encourage the opposition to press the attack against other Congress (I) chief ministers and or that she did not want to invite the charge of sacking a loyal follower when he was facing action in a law court. These explanations have been far from convincing. Mrs. Gandhi would have added to her stature if she had sent him away last summer when she first became aware of his wrongdoing and asked for her name to be removed from one of his trusts, that is before the evidence against him broke out into the open. In any event, once that had happened, she should have asked for and accepted his resignation and thereby established that she was responsive to public criticism. But that is an old story. All is well that ends well. Mr. Antulay’s exit is to be welcomed. It will be especially welcome if it convinces other chief ministers and ministers that they can no longer get away with chicanery. The people of India have become too vigilant and Mrs. Gandhi will not put up with it. She has suffered too much for their sake. It is also about time they recognise that they owe it to her to improve their ways.
A special responsibility also devolves on those in the press and the opposition who have exposed Mr. Antulay’s wrong-doing. They must act with restraint and not indulge in witch-hunt. They must not play into the hands of those Congress (I) leaders who have sought to mislead Mrs. Gandhi into believing that the criticism of Mr. Antulay was in fact intended to discredit her. They need her cooperation if they are to raise the level of morality in public life without throwing the country into confusion. They can win it only if they are able to convince her that they are not out to repeat 1974-75 in the name of fighting corruption.